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Ok guys, let's settle this debate, what do you guys think is the best kde distro. Please post replies to state why you think the one you choose. Please don't post/vote if you've no/little interested in kde. Lastly, sorry if i haven't included 'X' distro, i can't include all of them.

Click here to see the post LQ members have rated as the most helpful post in this thread.

Every day I genuinely dislike Slackware a little bit more. And this is today's bit.

There is no such thing as the best KDE distro, it is a nonsense question.

Why? What's Slackware done? Bob provides up to date kde builds.

I was inspired to make this poll after reading a web page by the Kubuntu team that refelcted obvious envy towards the reputation Opensuse have as a kde distro. I use kde, and Opensuse. I had issues with Mandriva in the past, and My issues with Kubuntu, are more with the Ubuntu side of things than the kde side of things. I like Mepis, but being based on Debian stable, it's main objective is obviously not to bring bleeding edge kde; wether that's a good thing or bad thing is another, but i find Opensuse provides up to date and stability at the same time.

I have voted openSUSE; KDE just seems to get a bit more TLC at oS than it does at some distros for which it isn't the first choice environment.

@knightron

Quote:

I like Mepis, but being based on Debian stable, it's main objective is obviously not to bring bleeding edge kde...

Well, I like Mepis too, but, A does not necessarily imply B. That is, when KDE 4.x first came out (and was a total disaster for the first few escapes of the software, making the much awaited transition to a partial disaster after a several more escapes ), for some reason I decided that I wanted to be an early adopter (and, I'll admit, that was one I got wrong), so I ran a 'KDE 4 rolling' on top of a 'stationary' version of oS. The point being that there is no fundamental reason why, just because you are running a tried 'n tested OS, you have to have the version of environment that was current when the OS was released.

Of course, it was still a pain, but you did get new and slightly improved pain every month.

There is no such thing as best. I use KDE in more that one distribution. I happen to like "KDE", I prefer it. I don't see that many differences between the two distributions I use. For me it really doesn't matter which distribution I am using as long as it has KDE.

My rule for beginners is "always use a distro with its default desktop". If you don't believe me, try using PCLinuxOS, OpenSUSE, or CentOS with Xfce. That eliminates Debian, Mint, and Fedora. I think Kubuntu is probably marginal here: the people who put it together are depending on the repository of Ubuntu, and Canonical are hardly interested in KDE.

My own experiences?
Arch: A tinkerer's distro for people who prefer repairing things to actually using them.
PCLinuxOS: The last time I tried the KDE version, they'd forgotten to provide the help files.
Mandriva: What, are they still alive?
Mageia: Where do they keep their codecs?
Slackware: Why bother when you can get Salix?
OpenSUSE: OK
Mepis: The best (of a bad job: nothing using KDE can be really described as the best)

Slackware is just a pointless evolutionary cul de sac of self congratulation and ego stroking. Simples!

Thanks for your opinion.

Thanks for the comment salasi. I'm aware that kde can be updated regardless of distribution, but you can't deny that some distros make it a lot easier than others. I'm pretty sure, that because of dependencies it is hard to upgrade kde to 4.6 let alone, beyond; in mepis.

Thanks for the comment salasi. I'm aware that kde can be updated regardless of distribution, but you can't deny that some distros make it a lot easier than others. I'm pretty sure, that because of dependencies it is hard to upgrade kde to 4.6 let alone, beyond; in mepis.

Yeah, sure, and that's one of the reasons that I'm using openSUSE. But it still doesn't make the following true:

Quote:

I like Mepis, but being based on Debian stable, it's main objective is obviously not to bring bleeding edge kde;

If you look at something like Bodhi/Bloathi, you get a recent Enlightenment on top of a now-ancient Ubuntu LTS. While I can't think of a distro offhand that takes that approach with KDE out of the box, it is simple enough to make openSUSE, for example, to do it (see here), so its not impossible.

In fact, this might be one of the few areas in the 'if it can be done, someone will do it' area of distros that someone doesn't seem to have done it, just because it can be done (whether there is any potential user demand for it, or not). I wish that I didn't think that there were too many distros already, or I might be persuaded...

Enlightenment is a Window maker, not a desktop environment, and thus, is a much smaller piece of software with a lot less dependencies, which would make it easier to port, without affecting the base lts to much. I am not speaking from experience, but if you were to update kde in Debian stable/mepis, to 4.8.1, the amount of things that would have to be upgraded/edited to make the update successful would make it pretty pointless to be running stable in the first place.
I will acknowledge, you are right.

Quote:

The point being that there is no fundamental reason why, just because you are running a tried 'n tested OS, you have to have the version of environment that was current when the OS was released.

Mepis users, like Debian users, can just as easily upgrade there Mepis system to use the Sid/Testing repos, and then have access to a newer kde.
I stand by my previous statement though. I don't think Mepis's main objective is to bring bleeding edge kde. You can argue with this all you want, but the facts stand, Mepis doesn't try to bring the latest, and I do not think this is a bad thing. Mepis just tries to be good at what it does, and i think it does well. I gave it a good review here at LQ, along with DavidMcCann.

...but being based on Debian stable, it's main objective is obviously not to bring bleeding edge kde...

It seems to me to be neither obvious nor true that being based on Debian stable prohibits a distro from also having 'bleeding edge' KDE. That Mepis doesn't do it means that if this is what you are looking for, Mepis isn't 'the one' for you, and may even be good marketing on the part of Mepis, because there may not be many people joining you in this particular quest. I just don't see that A (being based on Debian stable) implies B (no bleeding edge KDE) as some kind of a priori assumption.